Post #4
I’ve never heard of Steve Martin before. So I do as you do and googled his name, and found that the man is not only a writer, but a comedian, and a musician. In fact, he’d even written a song for the Prince of Egypt movie by Dreamworks; “You’re Playing With The Big Boys Now” which is sung by the Pharoh’s priests in a contest between the Egyptian pantheon and the Abrahamic God. That’s all to say, when I get these readings or passages, I don’t really expect such multifacetedness out of the author, let alone a connection to something else I know. I fully expected to be met with a trim, one-section Wikipedia page, and nary a picture. “Steven Williams, born in |#$}%^. Known for his work in “@#$%^”, “!#$”, “Cruel Shoes” and “*&^%”. Suffice it to say, it was a pleasant surprise to see an archived video of a 1984 stand-up routine at the top of some of his more recent work on YouTube. From what I can tell, the man was an expert at working the crowd. His opening bit was playfully stalling his “real act”. He gave an exaggerated greeting to the crowd, fumbled with the microphone, snapped them with a camera he brought on stage, and put on a number of silly props he had on the barstool to his left. This must’ve been at his heyday because the crowd, knowing his antics, cheered him all the way through. They loved his airy, non-sensical whimsy, and I, 40 years, 6 minutes, and 57 seconds later was beginning to like him too.
It’s been a while since I took a lesson in comedic writing, but I remember there are at least two ways one can distill humor through the written word. The first is through Subverting Expectations. This is the classic Tom and Jerry, Looney Toons kind of schtick. You set up a situation, ham it up to the point of an inevitable outcome, and when the audience is sure, and I’m talking really sold on what’s about to happen next, you pull the rug out from under them and give them a completely unexpected resolution. A la: Wile E. Coyote paints a road on the rock, and not only does the roadrunner blast through into the horizon, Wile E. breaks every bone in his body trying to follow. The second is to reveal a hidden truth with a dash of sadness. There’s a reason the smiling mask is always paired up with the frowning one. Inside every comedic storyline, behind the joke, there is a nugget of authenticity that speaks to the human condition. It’s played off for laughs at the moment, but it might hit you if you give it time to stew in your head. Steven Williams, in these 4 short passages, shows he has command over both.
I found Serious Dogs a refreshing vignette. Williams utilizes the imagery of a dog with the subverting technique to give us a funny little story. When you think about dogs, I’d bet the first thing in your mind is the playful, cute, companion. Innocent in the way that human concerns don’t even exist. That, or a savage and brutal beast. Something I’ve just now thought of is that dogs don’t get to be cunning, or smart, or mature. Wolves, coyotes, and foxes sure, but dogs only ever get to be an infantilized, ignorant goofball or a rabid monster that’s only ending is to be shot in the street. I suppose Willaims must have also had that revelation because in Serious Dogs he presents you with the image of dogs that are more than dogs, an ÜberHund to Nietzshe’s Übermensh! These dogs don’t chase cars, they take lunch under willows and sip on refined Bordeaux. They don’t poach the neighbor’s chickens, they’re proud carriers of “Federal Migratory Waterfowl Stamps”.
Williams paints a refined thing, not human, but almost as if it’s imitating us. That’s what makes it funny. To see the things we do by dogs, in a more crude way sure, but the parallels exist nonetheless, making everything we humans do, funny. Something I heard on Philosophize This!, a podcast explaining philosophical concepts, intrigued me about the power of humor. The host said something along the lines that the reason dictators so vehemently punish humor targeted towards them is that once you laugh at something, you can never take it seriously again. Just the idea that a group of dogs, whether you see them as dumb or savage can happily have a picnic, replicate the anatomy of a cow, and even ponder the meaning of art makes these activities which we see with such seriousness, that we think uniquely belong to the human experience gives us enough room to laugh at that parts of ourselves.
The second story, Cruel Shoes hits at a deeper truth of the human experience. Common scene of shoe shopping. It’s a vignette of a woman trying on shoes. A common experience, looking for the pair that feels just right.
“Both were left feet, one had a right-angle turn with separate compartments that pointed the toes in impossible directions. The other shoe was six inches long and was curved inward like a rocking chair with a vise and razor blades to hold the foot in place”.
As with the first method, it finds humor in contrasting the image of a ghastly pair of shoes, no way that it would be comfortable to wear, and out of nowhere the lady goes “I like them”. Pretty funny and unexpected. On the next level, it speaks to how people are inexplicably drawn to things that in so many words, seem like they weren’t made for human consumption. I recently saw a TikTok comedy skit imagining the pitch to Courage the Cowardly Dog Show, about a small dog protecting its owners, one loving and one not, from kafkaesque horrors. The one line that stood out to me was “We can’t love someone into caring for us, but knowing that can’t stop the loving”. This was said in regards to Eustace, Coward’s owner who openly shows disdain for the dog. Despite the abuse, Coward shows him an equal amount of love to his loving owner Muriel. Eustace is the shoe, and Coward is the shopper, who despite the pain, and ill-fit loves the shoe.
Steve Martin’s jovial performance and attuned comedic writing evoke both laughter and contemplation. His legacy extends beyond mere entertainment; it serves as a reminder of the humor that can be found in the quirks of life, and the hidden truths that often escape our everyday notice. Steve Martin’s brand of comedy remains a joyful and thought-provoking exploration of the human condition.
